Entropy Sounds Ominous

True to my word, Saturday I ran up to Temple to go grab a few caches. I had originally intended to get up early and make a day of it, but early mornings are not always my jams at the best of times, much less on a weekend in less there’s a really compelling interest like my daughters or new counties. Seeing as It was only an hour away, I set off mid-afternoon and got there before dinnertime. There’s a geoart there that goes around the whole town dedicated to the mascots of the high school …

… the Temple Wildcats. Many, many years ago, back when I knew next to nothing about caching, I tried to find a couple of caches from the series, but I failed. This time I went ahead and solved about a dozen puzzles from the art and then went after them. I went after the first ten and did not come away with a lot of success. Don’t get me wrong, I found almost half of them, but the rest were pretty obviously gone. When they were placed, they were just outside of town. Now, a fairly new subdivision borders the roads some of them were own. I’m not normally a DNFer because I often give up a search before I’ve been thorough enough to be satisfied something is missing, but I could just tell that many of these were victims of the town’s expansion. This is, of course, something to be expected. Time can do a number on caches. The subdivision destroyed a bunch of trees and posts that had been home to caches before. Several of the containers I found were compromised as well, plastic having become brittle victims of the unrelenting Texas sun. I had a laugh when I tried to take the cap off a pill bottle wired to a fence post and felt that the bottom had already crumbled away, leaving the log available from the other direction. Once I was done with that section, I headed off into town proper to grab some more. Some were there, some were not. One in particular I had tried on several occasions previously and didn’t even try to bother with on general principle; if I had realized which one it was on the map, I would have skipped it anyway. My point here (and I do have one) is that I got out of town, grabbed some caches, and then made my way home. I was a little disappointed that so many of these were gone but, again, that’s what time does. Having helped with maintenance on geoarts before, I think it’s well past time to get some folks in the are together and do some rehabilitation. That said, I will not be one of them because I’m currently helping with making challenges for some thing happening next year …

Sunday, on the other hand, involved less travel. While I was out running errands, I ran across a newly placed cache whimsically devoted to Ganesha. All I can cay about Mr. Elephant Head is that you shouldn’t tell the homeowner they can’t go somewhere in their own house, especially when they are the God of Destruction. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend crossing anyone with the title “the Destroyer” at the end of their name. Consider that your life pro-tip for the day.